


What He Deserved...

by Drusilla_951



Category: Arthur of the Britons
Genre: Brotherhood, Gen, Leadership, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 12:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1551242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drusilla_951/pseuds/Drusilla_951
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Kai’s debriefing. Set after '<i>Enemies and Lovers</i>' (Story: Scott Forbes).</p>
            </blockquote>





	What He Deserved...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ideserveyou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideserveyou/gifts).



> Unbeta-ed.

Arthur stretched as unobtrusively as he could and furtively pushed Kai’s cup away from the other man’s reach. Kai, who was seated opposite him at the long table, raised red-rimmed eyes to his leader’s face and shrugged; he didn’t try to get back his mead, though.

‘ _Thank God for some small mercies!_ ’ Arthur drowsily thought. The young chieftain hadn’t slept a wink the two previous nights and he knew that he probably wouldn’t sleep much this one night, either. But slumber wasn’t his main concern right now: Kai was. So he tried to keep his eyes open as his ears already were.

The second night had been the critical night the village was under attack by Morcant and his warriors.

The first night Kai had spent a part of awake – and keeping Arthur awake by talking about her.

Goda, daughter of Hywel.

The fair singer. The girl he intended to marry.

His traitor. The woman whose throat he slit.

In the guests’ hut in King Athel’s village, Arthur had stayed up all night. At first, he had listened to his best friend’s reminiscences and hopes. To be entirely truthful, he had sometimes inadvertently dozed off, but nonetheless he had focused on Kai’s words as much as he was able to, nodding at the important parts, sometimes venturing questions or comments. Then, when Kai had quickly slipped into peaceful sleep, Arthur had stayed awake, his own remorse pestering him with a thousand bites. How could he have been so thoughtless? _How?_

The third night, when all was through and peace was reclaimed in their village, Kai still spoke about Goda, seated at the table in the great hall, while Llud obliviously snored in his own bed. Between sentences, his Saxon foster brother had taken great gulps of his mead.

As he had done the previous night, Arthur listened intently to Kai’s outpouring. Sometimes, all one can do is listen.

While he did so, part of his brain still thought his own thoughts: they twisted and coiled themselves round the warmth of his wrath, without direction or logic.

_‘How could we know that Goda’s song would be her Swan Song? That Kai’s love-filled reminiscences would be the beginning of her journey toward that country whose boundaries no one ever crosses backwards?_

_She sang such a sad song, Goda. Such a truthful song, that one song! It even foreordained her fate, but at the times, none of us understood that._

_‘Tragic magic is your spell,’ she sang. Oh, definitely, Girl, your spell on Kai was tragic._

_‘And in your breath I drowned,’ she sang. You didn’t, Goda, but Morcant did drown. From Kai’s hands._

_‘I thirst for water from your well,’ she sang. Did you really want to drink from the same well, sweet Goda, perfidious Goda? Whatever your wishes, you met your death in a different way than your affianced husband._

_Will your deceitful souls meet in the Afterworld? If so, there may be some reckoning._

_Who began it all? Who took the first step?_

_Kai, when he could not win you, the very first time you met?_

_I remember it well. Llud told me about your meeting and Kai’s regrets, about his heartfelt grumblings when our war band had to leave for the battlefield. As any woman was worth another for Kai, I didn’t lose sleep over it. I should have known better. We won a great victory that day, and I misinterpreted Kai’s melancholy as weariness and despondency at losing good friends in the encounter._

_Who began it all?_

_Goda, when she had to obey Hywel? When her father decided to settle on Athel’s lands, in order to reunite with his brother Cradoc?_

_No one knew where both were headed at the times, Hywel, least of all. At least this once, she told the truth._

_If Cradoc had not welcomed Hywel with open arms… If Cradoc had not died soon after, childless… If Hywel had not inherited his lands… If Goda had not been an only daughter… If Morcant had not pursued her, first for her dowry, and then for her comely looks and sweet compliance… If Goda had not pledged him her troth…_

_If – If – If…_

_Who began it all?_

_I, Arthur, for foolishly hunting rich games outside our lands?_

_We were on the fringe of our common border, I knew it well, and yet, the exhilaration of the hunt took over. Until we found ourselves surrounded and outnumbered by Athel’s men, believing us to be Saxon scouts. If not for my wearing my father’s clasp…_

_My negligence cost us too dear._

_It very nearly cost us our lives. Kai’s. Mine. And consequently the lives of all my people._

_Two boars and one deer nearly cost us our lives. And we didn’t even bring them back with us…_

_Goda nearly cost us our lives.'_

Arthur’s inner fury shook him back to his surroundings.

Kai was watching him with a look not nearly as bleary as before. The rage and self-recrimination his leader felt ricocheted in his glare.

The blond man sat straighter on his bench and his hands seized an apple, fiddling with it. Arthur remarked on it and was somehow reassured, knowing by that simple gesture that Kai was regaining his composure. When had he known him to remain for long with bare, motionless hands? Kai was always fingering something, it seemed to him; an outlet to his inextinguishable energy.

“So,” Kai began. “Have you got anything to add?”

“No,” replied Arthur quietly. “Nothing I would say would be harsher than your own thoughts.”

“You have the truth of that.”

Kai lowered his gaze and bent over, focusing on his task. When he was done meticulously peeling the apple, he placed the fruit back on the table top without consuming it, wiped and sheathed his dagger. His hands shook a little, as much from the previous tension than from all the mead he had steadily drunk, Arthur guessed.

Arthur wryly smiled. “I have never really kept count of all the apples you have let go to waste. Let me have this one, at least!”

The skinless apple rolled towards him on the table separating them. The dark-haired man caught it and took a bite, relishing the tart aftertaste of the fruit and the juice that flowed under his tongue.

“Like my women, you mean?” Kai’s tone was oddly level.

“I didn’t mean it quite like that.”

“This one, I really wanted.”

“Oh.” Arthur considered the half-eaten fruit quizzically. “Sorry about that. Want it back?”

“No. I was speaking of the woman.”

There was nothing to say in reply to Kai’s statement, so Arthur didn’t try to. He finished eating the apple, threw the core on the table and licked his sticky fingers one by one, in the same gesture he had used as a child. He finally ventured: “What is done is done. There’s never a way back.”

Kai lifted his head and slowly asked his leader: “Do you really think so?”

“Mmm, it depends… Goda, yes, that is quite final,” Arthur considered aloud. “Athel, too; I doubt the old fool will renege on his words. Too many of his people heard them. However Tarn may prove a man of quite a different cast than his grandsire. When he is of age…” He shrugged. “All will depend on the regent Athel will choose. Only time will tell.”

“But your alliance with him is presently at an end,” Kai said bitterly. “If not for me…”

“You didn’t help, for sure.” Arthur stretched, quite openly, this time. His right shoulder was beginning to trouble him again. Oh, for the respite of being recumbent on his bed! He determinately pushed the tempting thought aside. There were still things to be said; after that, whatever it took, he was for bed and sleep. There was still work ahead of him on the morrow.

Like changing the defences on the trails Morcant’s men had used. Some pits would have to be dug in a hurry. And the sentries’ post would have to be moved: they would be too vulnerable, now that their exact positions were known.

On second thought, all was not lost: Morcant’s band had converged on two fronts and these paths were easily fixed. The stretch of territory between the uncovered defences was still unknown terrain for any foe, and the mystique of Arthur’s tricks would be reinforced by this continued ignorance.

 _‘Perhaps I should even be grateful to Morcant… How much time will it take to spread around that our foes knew of our defences, and still they failed?’_ Arthur let go of a low chuckle. Yes, this might be all to the good.

Involuntarily, Arthur grinned shrewdly. Kai was startled into watchfulness.

“Morcant would have made his move when Athel died, anyway… The old man was my father’ friend, but he doesn’t rule anymore, whatever his illusions are.” Arthur looked squarely in Kai’s troubled eyes. “So, don’t berate yourself too much! You may have done me a service, uncovering this nest of snakes…”

“Yes… Morcant would have despatched Tarn as soon as Athel breathed his last…” Kai thought aloud.

“Indeed. We squashed them for a time. A small respite, that, but I must grasp at all the straws that come along.”

Kai seemed to breathe more easily, all of a sudden. Arthur saw it and his stare grew harder.

“— Don’t think you are exculpated from any wrong doing, though!” He paused before stating with a mildness which was more piercing than any bellow: “Last night, you put all our people in danger. Yet, what I could overlook in Gareth and Gawain, I can also absolve for you – but once. Do not let us down again, Kai. Just don’t.”

Kai wordlessly assented.

“Good. Then let’s speak no more of it.”

“No,” Kai merely answered.

As Kai unsteadily got up, Arthur quietly added: “Another thing, Kai! Wait a while before taking a wife! I do not think I really like your way of procuring yours. The cost is much too dear and we can ill afford that.” The humorous half-smile took the edge out of his words, but the underlying steel still shone through.

Kai nodded. “Don’t worry. I will not take a wife for a very long while. You can be sure of that!”

“Oh, I’m not quite so sure… You always had an eye for a pretty face.”

“I won’t be looking anymore for a pretty face in a wife! This, I swear!”

“Really?” Arthur’s voice displayed his incredulity. “Surely, it would be a harsher penance that you warrant, saddling yourself with an ugly face to the end of your days!” He suddenly burst out laughing at Kai’s discomfited face.

His second-in-command retorted: “Oh, laugh it up! One day, it will hit you too. Hell’s Teeth! You may even fancy a Roman girl, for all we know!”

Arthur laughed harder. “Come on, Kai! You can do better than that! You really _are_ tired.” He looked over his shoulder at his right-hand man, and added in an inflexible voice: “Rome is no more, and it was a good riddance! However it left us to deal with the crumbling of the Empire and the rotting of the Roman ways... That fool Ambrosius may call himself a “Roman”, but he is no more a Roman than I a – a marrying man!”

“Aren’t you? Care to take a bet?”

“Sure.” Arthur smiled boyishly, but added somewhat ruthlessly, to enforce his lecture. “Haven’t you lost enough in a day?”

As they eagerly discussed the terms of the wager while unbuckling their belts and taking off their tunics, Llud cautiously opened one eye.

The old warrior had crept on regularly on the threshold of the great hall without any of the two younger men seeing him, and he was now at ease.

All would be well between the two of them, despite the occasional friction, and if Kai would have to prove himself harder for a while, his men would nonetheless follow him without dissent: Kai’s reckless gesture in throwing away his weapon – while he could have fought Morcant on unequal terms, finished the fight cleanly and quickly against an unarmed man – had taken care of _that_. Arthur’s wholesale and continued support had quickly closed the mouths of the malcontents.

Let Kai sweat for a while, though! This was the best retribution there was for his unseemly haste! ‘Courtship’ and ‘measure’ were words his son would have to add to his vocabulary pretty soon.

As for Arthur, his arrogance would one day be subjugated by the strongest of all his foes: his own heart.

Let him reap then what he deserved! Life would certainly teach him that lesson soon enough.

With an inner chortle, Llud went back to sleep.

**_Finis._ **


End file.
